Volume 18, Number 6
Oct 1994

Literature

[Note: The classification number that follows each entry is an
aid to compiling the yearly subject index.]

"The Case for a Software Registration Program," by Rod Goult, in
the "Forum" section of Quality Systems Update, August
1994, p. 11-12. The author is president of an ISO 9000 training and
consulting organization, and his specialty areas are electronics and
software. He speaks his mind about the big players in the U.S.
software industry, who recently used underhanded methods to block
development of "sector-specific" modifications of ISO 9000
standards. This means that U.S. software firms that want to sell
their product abroad will have to go to the United Kingdom to find
accredited registration bodies. In Goult's words, "With the typical
zeal of those who are both ill-informed and driven by pure
self-interest, the spokesmen of the anti-software sector lobby
distorted the facts about the TickIT [accreditation in information
technology] program, and without making any effort to establish what
the Registrar Accreditation Board's own Software Quality System
Registration committee was proposing, these anti-TickIT zealots
disseminated clear untruths about both the plans being developed by
the committee and the level of support for the proposals. They told
only those elements of the story which suited their purposes."

This Forum contribution should make it very clear to readers that
standards work is anything but dull.

The International Directory of Training in Conservation of
Cultural Property. 5th ed. ICCROM and Getty Conservation
Institute, 1994. This edition contains 30% more programs than the
previous edition. It includes specialized multi-year courses leading
to a degree; short-term courses for specialists; and conservation
courses offered within programs leading to degrees in other fields.
Entries are arranged by country and then by city, and indexed by
subject. Contact Getty Trust Publications at PO Box 2112, Santa
Monica, CA 90407-2112 (310/453-5352; in the U.S. and Canada, use
800/223-3431). (1D6)

"Examination and Identification of Photocopies and Photocopiers,"
by John S. Gorajczyk. American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts,
3d Series: Text and Sample Testimony to Assist in Proving Contested
Facts, v. 23. 1993. Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, a
division of Thomson Legal Publishing, Rochester. The author is a
forensic document examiner. This document reviews the types of
photocopiers, history of photocopying, parts of a copier, advantages
and disadvantages of various processes, what one can determine by
examining a photocopy, where to look for clues, methods used by
forgers, and how to present the evidence in court. (1E3)

"Delta Plan: A Report on the Netherlands' National Pres-ervation
Initiative," excerpts from a report by the Netherlands Ministry of
Welfare, Health, and Cultural Affairs. Published in Infinity,
the Newsletter of the SAA Preservation Section, Fall 1992, p.
7-8.

A 1988 report by the Dutch equivalent of the U.S. General
Accounting Office (GAO) revealed distressing storage conditions and
substandard record-keeping in the 17 national museums. As a result
of widespread concern, in 1990 the Delta Plan,
subtitled Preservation of Cultural Heritage in the
Netherlands, was set up, and funds were allocated to preserve
all of the Netherlands' cultural heritage, including that in
libraries. By 1994, a yearly allocation of about $23 million
dollars was planned. A survey was done, focusing on museums and
archives, and it "showed that everything appeared to be worse than
originally thought." Storage conditions, as well as
deacidification, copying of films and tapes, and other aspects of
preservation are being given concentrated attention. (1G5)

The Conserve O Gram series consists of about 56
four-page flyers issued by the National Park Service as a reference
on collections management and curatorial issues for its staff at
various historical sites. The series is not intended to serve as a
manual, but as a way of keeping up to date. Their format permits
frequent updating, and new Conserv O Grams are added as required.
They are also available to non-NPS institutions and interested
individuals by subscription ($56 to start; not clear how much they
charge to continue the subscription, which provides "six
supplements issued on a semi-annual basis"). Order from the
Superintendent of Documents, USGPO, Washington, DC 20402 (fax
202/512-2233). The Colorado Preservation Alliance recently reprinted
the one on "How to Flatten Folded or Rolled Paper Documents" to send
out with its newsletter.

About half of the Conserv O Grams are relevant to preservation of
library and archival materials, including ones on window mats,
making mounting corners for photographs, polyester film book
supports (reprinted from this Newsletter), photocopying,
preservation of magnetic media, and rare books. (1H)

"Preservation and Conservation in the Elementary Schools," by
Karen Williams. CAN No. 52, Jan. 1993, p.4-5, 7, 13.
This is a policy statement that has been approved by and implemented
in the Westwood Elementary School in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It
includes education of the students, staff and administrators;
preservation measures including book repair, a survey and
environmental monitoring; disaster planning; and integration of
preservation into the curriculum. (1H1)

Most libraries and archives probably prefer handbooks written
specifically for their use, but libraries and archives that are part
of a historical society, or housed in a historic building, may find
that this handbook suits their purposes very well. It is written
for the non-conservator and contains a lot of what could be called
"appropriate technology." Its 12 chapters and 16 appendices cover a
fair amount of material that applies only to the Park Service, and a
larger amount that applies mainly to museums and museum objects.
The parts that would be most valuable to libraries and archives are:

Appendices on curatorial care of photographs and of leather and
skin objects are planned for the future.

The chapter on cellulose nitrate negatives looks to be pretty
detailed and useful, covering identification, enclosures, freezing,
monitoring, conditioning upon removal, storage at room temperature,
health risks, duplication, shipping, disposition of negatives that
have been copied, and long-term storage for larger quantities.

Unfortunately, the 55-page appendix on care of paper objects is
not distinguished for its accuracy or usefulness. The author or
authors did not know paper history or chemistry very well:
interfiber bonds are described as "very weak," and the web of fibers
in contemporary papers is said to be held together by the sizing;
the quality of paper is said to have started declining only in the
mid-1800s, and lignin is called a protein. The advice on storage
and care is routine and a bit old-fashioned (it advises an RH of
45%-55%, and says it is OK to replace paper objects in a repainted
exhibit case as soon as the paint dries). Books are given scant
attention, as might be expected in a museum handbook. There is more
emphasis on art and historical records. (2.4)

This is a collection of essays. Contributors to Part 2,
"Building the Preservation Platform," are John H. Hammer, Patricia
Battin, George Farr, Patricia McClung, Condict Gaye Stevenson and
Hans Rütimann; to Part 3, "Agendas for Administration," Deanna
Marcum, Paul J. Fasana/John Baker, Nancy Gwinn and Margaret Child;
to Part 4, "Options and Opportunities," Janet Gertz, Peter Sparks,
Anne Kenney/Lynne Personius and Karen Motylewski/Mary Elizabeth
Ruwell; to Part 5, "Issues for Archives," Richard Cox and Paul
Conway; and to Part 6, "Progress and Unmet Challenges," Susan
Swartzburg/Robert Schnare. There is an index. (Information from
publisher's flyer). (2.4)

The format judged most important was journals, and from a long
list of art journals that began publication before 1940, they
selected about 170 that deserved a seat in the preservation
lifeboat. Of these, 61 began publication before 1900, and one began
as early as 1773. Almost half of them are in languages other than
English; all have text and pictures; and many pictures may be
missing, because people steal them. Most of the journals published
between the mid-1870s and 1914 are now brittle. For all these
reasons, the journals on the select list will not be easy to save.

The criteria for choosing these 170 or so journal titles, which
are listed on p. 2-4 of this insert, were: a) rarity, b) wide
usefulness, and c) historiographic significance to the entire
discipline regardless of specific content. (2.6)

"Determination of Some Atmospheric Pollutants Inside a Museum:
Relationship with the Concentration Outside," by F. De Santis, V. Di
Palo and I. Allegrini. The Science of the Total
Environment, no. 127, pp. 221-223, 1992. Four gases (sulfur
dioxide, nitric acid, nitrous acid and ozone) and two radicals in
particulate matter (sulfate nitrate [sic] and ammonium) were
measured in the Uffizi Gallery. Indoor levels of nitrous acid
exceeded outdoor levels. For the rest, levels fluctuated, but
indoor and outdoor levels were similar. (from AATA
Abstract 30-2349; 2C1.1)

There have been seven messages on the Cons DistList since August 17,
all about storage cases with environmental control. Various
systems, experts, suppliers (with addresses and telephone numbers),
principles and experiences are discussed, with good input from
knowledgeable people. Apparently the environmentally controlled
storage case (as opposed to display case) is coming into
its own now. Tom Chase of the Freer Gallery said August 22, "I
think that this sort of approach is more widely needed, especially
with utility prices going up all the time!" Ed Southern of the
North Carolina Division of Archives and History said, "Don't
overlook the obvious alternative: constructing a wall and installing
a door to create a small, environmentally controllable space.... I
maintained temperatures of 70-73° and an RH which varied from
40 to 50 percent, the latter figure occurring in the summer."
(2C2.3)

"Selection for Conservation," by Helmut Bansa.
Restaurator 13, 1992, p. 193-197. The author advises
not sorting out books for deacidification treatment at all, except
to include all books published between the early 1800s and the
future year when all paper will be made alkaline; he says the
selection procedure is lengthy, and treatment does not harm the
binding material.

He says it is useless to try to assign priorities for
reformatting and restoration of brittle and damaged materials.
Instead, they should be selected by use, since books do not
literally "crumble to dust." In fact, paper in the last stages of
decay is ideally suited to restoration by paper splitting, by hand
or by machine. Cool, dry and dark storage conditions are
indispensable; also needed are staff trained to detect brittle books
and a lab for reformatting books in a matter of hours before giving
it to the reader. If the policy is to put off reformatting or
restoring the book until it has been requested by more than just one
person, he recommends phase boxing after the first use, in a box
with a conspicuous color to facilitate later retrieval. (2D)

He discusses the merits of different kinds of optical disks for
preservation purposes, ruling out the CD-ROM, which cannot be made
inside the library, then ruling out the other kinds (WORM and
magneto-optical or MOD) as well, because the medium does not last
very long and the equipment to read the disks becomes quickly
obsolete. "If opto-electronic media are to be used as durable
storage units for information, all media have to be converted
immediately as soon as a new generation of devices appears on the
horizon. This is the only way to avoid the danger that these media
become technically outdated and thereby incompatible.... The optical
storage disk can therefore be recommended only for applications in
which frequent, timely access to a limited information base is
essential, provided that the preservation of these data is solved in
another way and there are no high demands for quality. It is an
access medium, a medium for use." He recommends microfilm. (2E3)

"Gray Matter" (a sidebar on p. 114 of the May 1994
Scientific American) describes "glyph codes" invented
by a Xerox scientist: software that can embed digital data in
graphics on the page itself, using marks so small that they appear
to human eyes as a gray patch. To show what it looks like, the
author (W. Wayt Gibbs) reproduces a gray patch giving the digital
version of his story. It takes up only a quarter of the space that
the printed version takes. Glyph codes, he says, might one day play
an important role in the grand unification of office electronics and
of paper.

Xerox is working on ways to embed glyph-packed graphics into
documents produced by the most popular business software packages,
and to provide scanning software so that you can read the printed
paper like a disk. (2E4)

"Disaster Planning in the '90s: Getting it Right," by Helene
Donnelly. CAN No. 52, Jan. 1993, p. 10-11. The author
is the founder of the Data and Archival Damage Control Centre, which
operates in England and the U.S. (The American telephone number is
219/422-7444.) In these two succinct pages, she gives pointed
advice, tells what to expect, and debunks a few myths. This is not
thirdhand stuff.

For instance, she tells how human error, not nature, caused the
Arno to flood in 1966 and damage or destroy an incredible amount of
art, books and records in Florence. Untrained staff at the city
reservoir, apparently filling in for the regular staff just before a
holiday, had opened the doors of the reservoir instead of closing
them, and it took them a long time to find out how to undo their
mistake. The level of the river rose sixteen feet overnight,
falling again 24 hours later. "The truth is," she says, "that most
disasters are caused by human incompetence."

She suggests sitting down with management and having a serious
talk about financial implications if a disaster were to put the
organization out of commission for three months; whether the library
is covered by insurance; who will be in charge in case of disaster;
and so on. She warns of hazards (PCBs liberated from capacitors
[ballasts?] in fluorescent fixtures, water contaminated with
bacteria) and unnecessary expenditures (freeze-drying of books and
papers when less expensive alternatives exist, or salvaging of
low-priority material). (2F)

The "restoring book paper" section describes a process of dry
leafcasting, using airborne dry fibers that have on them droplets of
a very stable acrylic/silicone thermoplastic. Air instead of water
carries the fibers as it is drawn through the lacunae in the paper.
The fibers are subsequently bonded to the paper and to each other by
application of heat and pressure. This process can be used for
moisture-sensitive documents, and the treatment is reversible using
solvents. [In the paper industry there is a similar process, called
dry forming or air felting.]

After the 1988 fire at the Library of the USSR Academy of
Sciences, several million books, many of them rare books, were
damaged by moisture, smoke or heat. The drying job was immense, and
money was short. The Library and cooperating institutions used a
variety of drying methods, including (for 200,000 books) freezing,
followed by an innovative method of drying, which is described in
the second section of this paper, and which should qualify as
"appropriate technology" by anybody's definition. Ten to 15 frozen
books of a similar size were wrapped up very tightly with an
absorbent cloth (such as towelling) that had pockets sewed into it,
covering each of the six sides of the package. They put sawdust
into the pockets to absorb the water. This took a week, sometimes
longer, under the conditions in the Library's Drying Room
(30°C, 30% RH, with vigorous circulation of air). Three
thousand to 4500 books could be dried in one cycle. Books were
straightened and fumigated after drying.

This is probably the most detailed description in English of this
remarkable process. (2F3.4)

"Preventing Patron Theft in the Archives: Legal Perspectives and
Problems," by Vincent A. Totka, Jr. American
Archivist, v.56, Fall 1993, p. 664-672. The author (who
holds degrees in history and library science, and works as a
correctional officer) says, "Many archival repositories in the
United States have a disaster plan to cope with a flood or fire, but
few have a formalized plan to deal with theft." He reviews the
problem of theft prevention, describes the survey to determine
security awareness among member repositories in the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin's Area Research Center (ARC) Network, and
evaluates the situation.

He makes four recommendations on the last page:

All patrons coming to the archives should be required to present
photographic identification when they sign the logbook.

All containers and personal effects should be kept separate from
the tables in the reading room.

All archives should require the reading room to be adequately
staffed at all times [at least two staff members].

All repositories should use reference slips, and patrons should
be required to sign them.

Arbeitsbltter des Arbeitskreises
Nordrhein-Westflischer Papierrestauratoren, 4. Ausgabe,
1992, contains eight illustrated articles (all in German, because
this is the newsletter/journal of a regional organization of book
and paper conservators), including the fashioning of book clasps,
map conservation and treatment of water-damaged materials.

"Salzschäden an Buchbeständen: Analyse und
Möglichkeiten der Behebung," by Ulrike Hähner and Peter
Zeisler. (In German) Restauro 3/94, p. 166-169. In
late summer of 1944, a large part of the book collection of the
University of Marburg was stored for safekeeping in a pit under a
country house. Six months later, a fire broke out in the book
storage area. The usual firefighting methods did not work; they saw
that the only way to contain it was to wall off the area. Six
months later they opened up the pit and found that 15% of the books
had been consumed by the fire, others were heat-damaged, and all
were wet. Salt crystals formed in the paper when restorers dried
the books out, forming big lumps. The books had to be restored
again, beginning in 1993. This article describes the process,
including the salt removal methods. (3A3)

The "Open Forum" department of the February 1993 New
Library Scene goes into the issue of flat-vs.-rounded and
backed spines pretty thoroughly, with contributions from Stephen P.
Heckman, Gregor Campbell, and Paul Parisi. (3A4)

"The Solander Box: Its Varieties and its Role as an Archival Unit
of Storage for Prints and Drawings in a Museum, Archive or Gallery,"
by Niccolo Caldararo. Museum Management and
Curatorship, v.12, p. 387-400, 1993. This is a review of
what is known about Solander boxes as containers for housing
artifacts: their history, research on their protective effect,
evaluation of materials, design of construction, security aspects,
cost, suppliers, alternative storage containers, everything. It is a
gold mine of relevant information for any institution that is
considering purchase of such containers for safe storage of
artifacts. (3A8.1)